beauty

High-tech in­no­va­tions set to rock your bath­room cab­i­net.

TREE OF LIFE In­gre­di­ents don’t need to be Birkin-bag rare to be in­no­va­tive. “We look for the ex­tra­or­di­nary in or­di­nary,” says Wendy Brooks, di­rec­tor of global prod­uct de­vel­op­ment for Ori­gins. Take the white nar­cis­sus lily bulb used in the brand’s Three Part Har­mony Oil-In­fused Serum ($85) and Nour­ish­ing Cream ($85). Orig­i­nally dis­cov­ered in the Eastern Mediter­ranean, the bulb was al­ready be­ing used in Ori­gins prod­ucts when Dr. Lieve Leclercq, vice-pres­i­dent of ba­sic science re­search, found that it had the abil­ity to awaken it­self from a sleep­ing state, or “senes­cence.” Skin cells also ex­pe­ri­ence senes­cence as they age, be­com­ing less func­tional. As a re­sult, they send out neg­a­tive sig­nals that tell other cells to slow down and make less col­la­gen. The bulb in­ter­rupts these sig­nals and helps skin wake up and re­store it­self. Good news for those look­ing to hold onto mois­ture and firm­ness in their skin (a.k.a. ev­ery­one).

SOOTHE OP­ER­A­TOR Hair-prod­uct ben­e­fits shouldn’t go down the drain when you wash, ar­gue the cre­ators of Liv­ing Proof Per­fect Hair Day Sys­tem. Their patented mol­e­cule OFPMA sticks to hair cu­ti­cles and pro­tects them bet­ter than surly body­guards pro­tect the Biebs. It also ac­tively re­builds strands, so the more you use the sil­i­cone-free so­lu­tion the bet­ter hair gets. Liv­ing Proof Per­fect Hair Day Sham­poo and Con­di­tioner ($30 each)

IN­VIS­I­BLE INK Get­ting rid of your tat­too sucks less than be­fore (#hon­esty). That’s be­cause of PisoSure, a laser that acts like a power washer for your bad de­ci­sion. Its rays are stronger than tra­di­tional lasers so they break down ink (even the hard-to-zap colours yel­low, blue and green) into tiny par­ti­cles that are eas­ier for the body to ab­sorb or elim­i­nate. That means fewer treat­ments—just four to see a 90-per­cent re­duc­tion in ink—and less pain. Toronto’s Spa Med­ica was one of the first clin­ics to of­fer this treat­ment in Canada; there are now clin­ics in Van­cou­ver and Mon­treal too. Still a scaredy-cat? SpaMed­ica’s Dr. Stephen Mul­hol­land says that cream or anaes­thetic can be ap­plied to numb skin prior to the treat­ment.

OIL SLEEK This year, oils sur­prised us with their ver­sa­til­ity: as a spray to add shine to hair in Garnier Fructis Triple Nutri­tion Mirac­u­lous Oil-in-Spray ($5.79); dis­guised in a gel to smooth on skin in Lancôme Vi­sion­naire Nuit Beauty Sleep Per­fec­tor Gel-in­Oil ($97); and as a gen­tle buf­fer for retinoids in Sun­day Ri­ley Luna Sleep­ing Night Oil ($130). For de­tails, see Shop­ping Guide.

WHAT’S UP, DOC? In the world of in­jecta­bles and plas­tic surgery, a lot: The Halo Laser The world’s first hy­brid frac­tional laser tar­gets dis­col­oration (thanks, sun dam­age) and wrin­kles in one zap. Mi­raDry Peace out, pit stains. This treat­ment blasts the sweat and odour glands in your un­der­arms with fo­cused mi­crowave energy. Bonus: It typ­i­cally takes one treat­ment. Lu­miBel You only need nine min­utes to get bet­ter skin, say the Cana­dian cre­ators of trade­marked gel Lu­miBel. Blue light (with no UVA/UVB rays) ac­ti­vates in­gre­di­ents in the gel to re­duce signs of wrin­kles and acne scars.

CUS­TOM BLEND Cus­tom­ize your makeup to fit your skin­care needs. For the days when your skin is in need of a lit­tle some­thing ex­tra, Cover FX of­fers four vi­ta­min and es­sen­tial-oil mixes— to hy­drate, add ra­di­ance and slow the signs of ag­ing—that can be added to the makeup and/or skin­care prod­ucts you’re al­ready us­ing. Cover FX Cus­tom In­fu­sion Drops in C + Lemon­grass Ra­di­ance ($48)

THE FOUN­DA­TION REVO­LU­TION Face paint has gone high tech with in­no­va­tive in­gre­di­ents and new ap­pli­ca­tion tech­niques. • Stila Per­fectly Poreless Putty Per­fec­tor ($51) uses a topse­cret for­mula (we asked!) with sil­i­cone to ab­sorb oil and re­duce the look of pores. Thanks to its bouncy tex­ture, it’s also re­ally fun to put on! • Temptu Air ($258, at NET -A-PORTER .com) is air­brush­ing on the go. It’s billed as the first-ever cord­less air­brusher and can even be used to con­tour. h

ON SPEED Shel­lac, the fast-dry­ing, long-wear­ing gel-nail sys­tem we’re all ad­dicted to, is get­ting even quicker. Next time you’re at the sa­lon, look for the new CND lamp: The brand has cre­ated one that uses LED lights to cure nails in half the time, so you’re done in un­der one minute. Bonus: It’s com­pat­i­ble with a new top­coat that cuts re­moval time down to five min­utes.

BAND- AID SO­LU­TION Liq­uid ban­dages are no longer re­served for the first-aid kit. Smash­Box in­cor­po­rated the tech­nol­ogy into its 24 Hour CC Spot Con­cealer ($29) for a non-ir­ri­tat­ing for­mula that re­ally sticks to skin, and Bum­ble and Bum­ble uses crea­tine in its Full Po­ten­tial Hair Pre­serv­ing Booster Spray ($70) to en­velop and pro­tect strands.

MAGIC ( ROOT) ERASER This isn’t a new re­lease, but it’s such an un­der-the-radar top per­former that we had to men­tion it. Colourist Gail Fed­erici, co-founder of John Frieda, cre­ated this pig­ment-packed min­eral pow­der that binds to roots and sub­tly hides the grey un­til your next sham­poo. Color Wow Root Cover Up ($39.95)

LATHER, RINSE, BRONZE The best thing about this smart self-tan­ner—other than get­ting to ap­ply it mid-shower—is that it lathers up, so there’s no miss­ing that one spot at the back of your leg that you can never quite reach. The ad­di­tion of mois­tur­iz­ing swee­tal­mond oil doesn’t hurt, ei­ther. St. Tropez Grad­ual Tan In Shower Lo­tion ($31). For de­tails, see Shop­ping Guide.

APP QUEEN The down­loads that are worth your data plan: Find Your VS Shade. Users upload a photo and then try on dif­fer­ent Vi­dal Sas­soon hair colours to get an idea if they’re bet­ter suited to life as a blonde (or any of the 23 other shades) be­fore com­mit­ting to the switch. Makeup Ge­nius by L’Oréal Paris. Beauty looks cre­ated by L’Oréal Paris makeup artists, in­clud­ing Ed­die Mal­ter, are mapped on the user’s face in real time—so you can see if a lip­stick looks just as good when you’re pout­ing as when you’re smiz­ing. Per­fect365. This pop­u­lar photo-edit­ing app has op­tions to hide blem­ishes, fill in brows, whiten teeth and con­tour. (It’s ba­si­cally Pho­to­shop for peo­ple who don’t know how to Pho­to­shop.) Head to Sephora and try the Pan­tone Color IQ, a ther­mome­ter-like de­vice that de­ter­mines skin tone and matches it to in-store prodz— en­sur­ing that you will never again have to match foun­da­tion by swip­ing three shades across your jaw­line. n